As telecommunications using packet-based networks continues to supplant older digitized and/or analog forms of telecommunications, volume on newer packet-based telecommunications networks continues to increase such that ever more bottlenecks that hamper efforts to scale up components of such networks are arising. Among such bottlenecks are components that analyze packets as part of routing them between endpoints in such networks.
Such analysis often entails accessing and using one or more pieces of information in a header of each packet, such as an identifier of a destination of the packet, such as an identifier of a user, a location or a specific device. However, such an approach suffers from the need for many devices along the path of a packet through such a network to each perform the same type of access and use of the header of the packet. As the volume of packets through such a network continues to scale up, the processing effort and delays of performing such accesses and making such use of headers can become significant.